Rudy Giuliani on Homeland Security

Former Mayor of New York City; Republican Candidate for 2000 Senate (NY)

Try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal

No longer will terrorism be treated as a war. It will henceforth be only a crime. Nothing better epitomizes this change in federal attitudes than Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the
9/11 attacks, in a federal criminal court in New York City. As former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said, "What the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that the war on terror is over. We are no longer going to treat these people as if thi
was an act of war. I do not understand why they cannot try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal. That also would demonstrate that we are a nation of laws. That is the way we have tried enemy combatants in the past, whether it was the
WWII or the US Civil War."

Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, said, "in this particular case, we are reaching out to give terrorists a legal benefit that is unnecessary."

Don't strip back Patriot Act; keep electronic surveillance

Giuliani was an implausible nominee--a socially liberal New Yorker seeking to take over a party dominated by southerners and evangelical Christians. Giuliani was a true conservative in many respects.
On national security, no one in the field, save possibly McCain, was so outspoken about the need to stay on the offense--or talked more about the damage to the country's security that could occur if a Democrat were elected in 2008.
Democrats in power, he said, would "wave the white flag" in Iraq, strip back the Patriot Act, reduce electronic surveillance, and soften the administration's interrogation policy. "We're going to cut back, cut back, cut back, and we'll be back to our
pre-September 11 mentality of being on defense," he told a N.H. audience. A Democratic president would mean a prolonged war on terror that likely would cost the country the lives of many more of its own citizens.

Whether waterboarding is torture depends on how it's done

"Well, I'm not sure it is either. It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it."--Rudy Giuliani, on waterboarding not being torture,
Oct. 24, 2007

"It is not like putting burning coals on people's bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological."--Sen. Joe Lieberman, after voting against a bill prohibiting waterboarding, Feb.14, 2008

Source: The War in Quotes, by G.B. Trudeau, p. 87
, Oct 1, 2008

AdWatch: “Ready” with executive experience in crises

Q: You have a new commercial out called “Ready,” which says this: “Leaders assassinated, democracy attacked, and Osama bin Laden still making threats. In a world where the next crisis is a moment away, America needs a leader who’s ready.”
If it is a choice of which Republican is ready on these issues, why not John McCain?

A: I believe that I’ve been tested in a way that others haven’t. I’ve had to deal with crisis in many different ways as mayor of New York City and have proven that
I can and that I’m ready to do that.

Q: But John McCain has been a leading voice on national security for more than a decade now.

A: There’s a difference between being one voice of 100, and then actually being the decision-maker that day in and day
out is actually on the line for making those decisions, so you can see the consequences of those decisions. The executive experience that I have is more similar to the kind of background that most of the selections for president have been like.

FactCheck: Claimed Clinton cut army by 25%; actually was 16%

Giuliani falsely blamed Pres. Clinton for cuts in the military that happened mostly under a Republican administration. Giuliani said, “Bill Clinton cut the military drastically. It’s called the peace dividend, one of those nice-sounding phrases, very
devastating. It was a 25% or 30% cut in the military. Pres. Bush has never made up for that. Our Army had been at 725,000; it’s down to 500,000.”

Actually, most of the cutting to which Giuliani refers occurred during the administration of George H.W.
Bush. At the end of 1993, the Army had 572,423 active-duty soldiers--a far cry from 725,000. In fact, to get to that number, one has to go back to 1990, during the first Gulf War. Moreover, Clinton’s cuts in the military, while large, were nowhere close
to 25% to 30%. Between 1993 and 2001, the Army declined 16%, and the entire military by 19%. Compare that with the far larger cuts made during the first Bush administration: Between 1989 and 1993, the Army declined 20%, and the entire military by 26%.

Did business with Qatar, a US ally which protects al-Qaeda

Q: Your consulting business has been involved with the country of Qatar.

A: Right.

Q: The Wall Street Journal wrote, “The Qatar contract offers a window into potential political complications. While Qatar is a US ally, it has drawn scrutiny for its
[limited] involvement in the US effort to combat terrorism.” Are you aware that the Qatari interior minister has been identified as a protector of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks?

A: I’m aware of it now.

Q: Why would you do
business with people who helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammad?

A: The reality is that Qatar is an ally of the US. There are a significant number of American troops that are stationed in Qatar.

Q: But the emir of Qatar praised Hezbollah for their victory ove
Israel in Lebanon.

A: The emir of Qatar also supports the US, is one of our friends in the Middle East, is taking the grave risk of having American soldiers there. [My consulting there] gave my company a great deal of expertise in Islamic terrorism.

Didn’t vet Bernard Kerik sufficiently for DHS recommendation

Q: Your judgment has been questioned regarding your police commissioner, Bernard Kerik. The Daily News reported: “Kerik lied, schemed & sold out NYC--all under the nose of Rudy Giuliani. The 16-count indictment charges Kerik with conspiracy, tax fraud,
& making false statements. If convicted, he faces up to 142 years in prison & up to $4.75 million in fines.” Do you recall the warnings about Kerik?

A: I don’t. Now, the reality is I made a mistake in not vetting him carefully enough. And it’s my
responsibility; I should have. On the other side, Bernard Kerik’s public performance as police commissioner was excellent.

Q: But you recommended in 2004 that Kerik be the secretary of homeland security, after Kerik’s associates had been indicted &
pleaded guilty. You knew none of that?

A: Was it available? Sure, it was available. I didn’t find it. I should’ve checked that, you’re absolutely right.

Remain on offense against Islamic terrorism

Q: What would you do as president to repair the image of America in the eyes of the Muslim world?

A: The most important thing to do is to make certain we remain on offense against Islamic terrorism.
Then make it clear that what that means is this is a small group of people, Islamic terrorists, who have defiled a great religion

We can’t close Guantanamo; nobody will take the people there

Q: You don’t think we should close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. So how long are you prepared to live with the international criticism it’s causing? And how long do you think we should hold people there that we feel we can’t gain a conviction on,
but are too dangerous to set free?

A: Well, this reminds me of a period of time in New York when judges would release criminals into the street, or threaten to do it. We can’t close Guantanamo because nobody will take the people there.
The president is attempting to move those people to other countries, and those countries are intelligent enough to say, “We don’t want people as dangerous as this in our country.” So what are you proposing?
That we release them in New York or in Boston or in Los Angeles? So there’s a reality to this that the liberal media and some of the Democratic politicians seem to try to avoid.

FactCheck: Dems don’t say “Islamic” but do say “terrorism”

Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of “appeasement” toward Islamic terrorists out of “political correctness.” Giuliani said, “In four Democratic debates, not a single Democratic candidate said the word ‘Islamic terrorism.’ Now, that is taking
political correctness to extremes. You do not achieve peace through weakness and appeasement.”

Giuliani is correct that in four debates the Democratic candidates have not uttered the words “Islamic terrorism” together, and have generally avoided making
critical comments about Muslims. But Giuliani is wrong to imply that the Democrats have failed to address terrorism. Here is a sampling of what leading Democratic candidates said in one debate on June 3:

Obama: “On this issue of terrorism: We
have genuine enemies out there that have to be hunted down.”

Edwards: “I will do absolutely everything to find terrorists where they are.”

Clinton: “I have seen firsthand the terrible damage that can be inflicted by a small band of terrorists.”

Use every method you can think of to interrogate terrorists

Q: Let’s say terrorists mounted 3 successful suicide attacks in the US, and a 4th attack was averted and the terrorists captured. How aggressively would you interrogate those being held about where the next attack might be?

A: If we know there’s going to be another attack and these people know about it, I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn’t be torture, but every method they can think of.

Q: Would you support enhanced interrogation techniques like water-boarding?

A: Well, I’d say every method they could think of, and I would support them in doing that.
I’ve seen what can happen when you make a mistake about this, and I don’t want to see another 3,000 people dead in New York or any place else.

Interrogation & surveillance: do legally but aggressively

Q: Is it approaching time to jump ship?

A: Going on defense on Iraq & going on defense about terrorism is not just about Iraq. It’s about the opposition to extending the Patriot Act, the opposition to electronic surveillance, the opposition to
interrogation. Both those things, interrogation & electronic surveillance, have to be done legally, but they have to be done aggressively. I detect in the Democrats a kind of attempt to go back to a pre-Sept. 11 mentality in which we’re not anticipating.

Avoided military service in Vietnam with a deferment

After graduating magna cum laude from NYU Law School in 1968, Rudy set his sights on becoming a federal prosecutor. Although then a Kennedy Democrat, Rudy caught the eye of Lloyd MacMahon, a prominent Republican lawmaker and judge, who, unimpressed by
pedigree, saw Rudy’s good points--his street smarts, driving ambition, and tireless dedication. Becoming Rudy’s mentor, the judge even helped Rudy to avoid military service in Vietnam--a deferment that would one day come to haunt candidate Rudy.

Democrats don’t support military the way Republicans do

The former New York City mayor has supported Bush’s war on terror and has said Democrats “don’t support the military the way Republicans do.” He said any withdrawal from Iraq would only encourage future terror attacks.

Islamic terror is existential threat, not based on US policy

PAUL: [to GIULIANI]: I’m as concerned about the threat of terrorism as anybody. But they don’t attack us because we’re free and prosperous--but because we invade their countries, because we have bases in their country.

GIULIANI: Ron’s analysis is
really seriously flawed. The idea that the attack took place because of American foreign policy is precisely the reason I handed back a $10 million check to a Saudi prince who gave me the money at ground zero for the twin towers fund and then put out a
press release saying America should change its foreign policy. There’s an Islamic, terrorism threat against us. It’s an existential threat. It has nothing to do with our foreign policy. It has to do with their ideas, their theories, the things that they
have done and the way they’ve perverted their religion into a hatred of us. Our foreign policy is irrelevant--totally irrelevant. If you read what they write, if you bother to listen to what they say, this comes out of their own perverted thinking.

Fervently supported reauthorization of the Patriot Act

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has come out swinging against the Democratic-led filibuster that prevented a reauthorization vote on the USA Patriot Act. Giuliani said the Senate action “represents a grave potential threat to the nation’s
security. Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work.

”It is simply false to claim, as
some of its critics do, that this bill does not respond to concerns about civil liberties. The four-year extension of the Patriot Act, as passed by the House, would not only reauthorize the expiring provisions, it would also make a number of
common-sense clarifications and add dozens of additional civil liberties safeguards. Given these improvements, there is simply no compelling argument for going backward in the fight against terrorism.“

Terrorism had been festering for many years

The horror, the shock and the devastation of those attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and over the skies of Pennsylvania lifted a cloud from our eyes. We stood face to face with those people and forces who hijacked not just airplanes but a
religion and turned it into a creed of terrorism dedicated to eradicating us and our way of life. Terrorism did not start on 9/11. It had been festering for many years. And the world had created a response to it that allowed it to succeed.

Source: 2004 Republican Convention Speech
, Aug 30, 2004

Terrorists can’t be accommodated, appeased, and compromised

Terrorists learned they could intimidate the world community and too often the response, particularly in Europe, was “accommodation, appeasement and compromise.” They also learned that their cause would be taken more seriously, almost in direct
proportion to the barbarity of the attack. Terrorist acts became a ticket to the international bargaining table. How else to explain Yasser Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize when he was supporting a terrorist plague that undermined any chance of peace

Source: 2004 Republican Convention Speech
, Aug 30, 2004

We will see an end to global terrorism

We will see an end to global terrorism. I can see it. I believe it. I know it will happen. Look how quickly the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Iron Curtain ripped open and the Soviet Union disintegrated because of the power of the pent-up demand for
freedom. When it catches hold there is nothing more powerful than freedom. Give it some hope, and it will overwhelm dictators, and even defeat terrorists. That is what we have done and must continue to do in Iraq.

Source: 2004 Republican Convention Speech
, Aug 30, 2004

We’re right and terrorists are wrong--as simple as that

On 10/1/01, I addressed the UN General Assembly Special Session on Terrorism. I wanted to set forth a principled statement of American objectives. The people in that chamber are accustomed to ambiguities. This time, it was not ambiguous: we were facing
absolute evil. I said:

On 9/11, NYC was viciously attacked in an unprovoked act of war. This was an attack on the very idea of a free, inclusive, & civil society.

Because of our principles--particularly our religious, political, & economic
freedoms--we find ourselves under attack by terrorists. Our freedom threatens them, because they know that if our ideas of freedom gain a foothold among their people it will destroy their power.

There is no room for neutrality on the issue of terrorism
You’re either with civilization or with terrorists. On one side is democracy, the rule of law, & respect for human life; on the other is tyranny, arbitrary executions, & mass murder. We’re right & they’re wrong--it’s as simple as that.

Deal with untrustworthy negotiators by getting it in writing

Sometimes a leader has no alternative but to deal with someone untrustworthy. The only option is to lock up every detail in the clearest possible language, ensuring that it’s all written, with witnesses. Limit the dealing to the minimum necessary to get
the deal done. But even as you’re making the deal, they’ll be finding some way to weasel out of it. You’ve got to know when you’re dealing with somebody who won’t stay bribed so you can collect your end of the bargain up front.

Ronald Reagan exemplifie
the best way to approach such situations. Reagan forced the Soviets to make concessions up front before the US made any in return.

In politics--in any organization--you must apply to institutional decisions the wisdom acquired from individual
relationships, because institutions are largely just reflections of individual behavior. Sometimes in negotiations you want a particular result so badly that you become soft-headed about the likelihood of the other side living up to its end of the deal.

America's Mayor: mouthpiece for how Americans felt post-9/11

After the 9/11 attacks it was Mayor Rudy Giuliani, not President George W. Bush, who was the immediate voice of authority on American television. His response was hailed internationally and earned him the nickname of "America's Mayor", a title given to
him first by Oprah Winfrey at a Yankee Stadium 9/11 memorial service on 23 September 2001. Also in 2001, Time magazine named Giuliani "Person of the Year" and from that point onwards he was much in demand for his stand against terrorism and as
a proponent of freedom from fear. In his public statements, Giuliani was a mouthpiece for what Americans, and particularly New Yorkers, felt after 9/11. He was seen as a point of safety: capable, understanding, driven, sharing in their anger and despair.
He said: "Tomorrow New York is going to be here", and he went to great lengths to explain and show how New York would develop, literally, from the ashes of the disaster.

Rudy Giuliani on September 11

Was aware of al-Qaeda before 9/11, but not its enormity

Q: You said recently: “Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn’t hear it. I thought it was pretty clear at the time, but a lot of people couldn’t see it.” But a report by a 9/11 Commission counsel in 2004, quotes you conceding that it wasn’t until “after
9/11 that we brought in people to brief us on al-Qaeda.” Asked about the al-Qaeda threats from 1998-2001, you said: “At the time, I wasn’t told it was al-Qaeda, but now that I look back at it, I think it was al-Qaeda.” That doesn’t seem someone who’s
very aware of the al-Qaeda threat before 9/11.

A: I wasn’t very aware of it before 9/11. I knew about it in general.

Q: But al-Qaeda had been participants in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

A: Right. I knew that.

Q: In 1998, al-Qaeda
declared war on the US.

A: I knew that.

Q: But if you knew that, why weren’t you briefing your people?

A: Well, because I didn’t see the enormity of it. I understood that it was a problem. I never envisioned the kind of attack that they did.

Quit Iraq Study Group to avoid politicizing it

Q: The Iraq Study Group appointed you as a member. And then you quit. Newsday wrote: “Giuliani’s membership came to an abrupt end in the spring of 2006 after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group. Giuliani left after just
2 months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race. He cited ‘previous time commitments’--[our research showed] he gave 20 speeches in that month that brought in $1.7 million.”
Did you quit the panel in order to make money from speeches?

A: Well, that isn’t exactly why I did it. I was a possible presidential candidate. I realized that this would be a terrible conflict; that this report was going to get written right about the
time that I might be announcing running for president. It would become very politicized. I was also trying to clean up a lot of commitments. But if it hadn’t been for that conflict, I probably would have put aside those commitments and done it.

AdWatch: Firefighters Union blames Giuliani for 9/11 deaths

NARRATOR: At 9:32 am on Sept. 11th, Chief Callan ordered all FDNY members in the North Tower to the lobby. He repeated the command, but not a
single company answered. At 9:59 the South Tower collapsed. FDNY’s Chief Pfeifer then repeated the order for all units to evacuate the North Tower. Firefighters had 56 minutes after the first call and 29 minutes after the second order to get out.
While all police officers left the building, 121 firefighters never made it out.

FDNY DEPUTY CHIEF JIM RICHES: That day my son was working, and they didn’t hear the call, 121 guys didn’t hear the call in the North Tower to get out, and they, and the
police officers heard it, ‘cause their radios worked, and ours didn’t.

[The IAFF video logged more than 173,000 viewings on YouTube and was the subject of wide news coverage. It has been compared to ads run by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004.]

FactCheck: Radio failure PARTLY responsible for 9/11 deaths

The IAFF union representing New York City firefighters is running a misleading video blaming former Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the deaths of more than 100 firefighters at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

We agree that
Giuliani bears some responsibility for the widely documented failings of the fire department’s radio communications on 9/11. It is true that the effective functioning of the fire department is a major responsibility of any mayor, and
Giuliani had been in office since 1994. However, the video goes too far when it implies that bad radio communication was the ONLY reason that 121 firefighters failed to clear the North Tower of the Trade Center after the first tower collapsed.
To the contrary, the 9/11 Commission stated in its final report that the technical failure of fire department radios “was not the primary cause of the many firefighter fatalities in the North Tower.”

There were other command centers besides the one at WTC

Q: You put the emergency response command center in the World Trade Center in 1997, even though your director of emergency management recommended that you not put it there because it had been a target in 1993. Why’d you do that?

A:My director of
emergency management recommended 7 WTC.

Q: I have got a copy right here of Jerry Hauer’s directive to you, in which he said that it’s a bad idea. And the police chief, Howard Safir, said it was a bad idea.

A: Jerry Hauer recommended that as the prime
site & the site that would make the most sense, and he recommended it. And the reason that that site made sense was it was also the location of the customs service, the Secret Service & a number of other federal agencies that we had to be in contact with
And we also had backup centers at the police department, and in Brooklyn we had a virtual command center. So when that command center was inoperable, within a half hour of September 11 we were able to move immediately to another command center.

WTC7 met Giuliani’s criteria for emergency HQ

Beginning in 1993, Giuliani became very frustrated when he saw that the police & fire departments each handled emergencies according to their own protocols, often bumping into each other. Moreover, it became obvious that NYC had no established procedures
for dealing specifically with terrorist events.

Giuliani, a politician from the command and control school, decided to take personal and visible charge of all emergencies. The city’s existing emergency center at police headquarters lacked a backup phon
system; it did not maintain its power generators; it was vulnerable to hurricane force winds and was in a flood zone.

Giuliani established new criteria for establishing his new control center: good security; unobstructed views; and within walking
distance of City Hall. Building No.7 at the World Trade Center was occupied by the CIA, Secret Service, and Federal Home Loan Bank, among others. The Secret Service had analyzed the building; it found that nothing but a huge truck bomb could damage it.

Lack of unified command & communication added to 9/11 deaths

The Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center unleashed the largest emergency responses in American history. Giuliani will long be remembered for showing courage in the face of unimaginable horror.

Yet it has become clear from technical studies of that
traumatic day that the city’s rescue operation could have been far better organized. Tragically, the death toll among those who tried to save the lives of innocents trapped at the weakened & burning World Trade Center was larger than it should have been.
There are several reasons for that, including:

NYC’s long-running rivalry between the police and fire departments, the “battle of the badges”;

the separate rather than unified command posts serving each department;

an inadequate radio
communication system;

and the mayor’s decision to place the city’s new emergency management center on the twenty-third floor of a high rise building within a complex already known to be the largest terror target in the world.

Emergency HQ’s fuel storage contributed to WTC7 collapse

[Giuliani’s emergency HQ was on the 23rd floor of WTC building 7]. In an emergency did Giuliani really want to climb 23 flights of stairs? “Who’s walking?”, an aide said, “We had generators to run the elevator. We had one generator dedicated to us so tha
we could go up & down even if the entire city went out.”

Ah, and that became the rub. A giant, 6,000-gallon diesel fuel tank would supply back-up electricity to the bunker in the event of a power failure. After 9/11, a preliminary assessment raised
the possibility that the diesel fuel was responsible for the fire which melted steel and undermined the building’s transfer truss structure. An hour before it fell at 5:28 p.m., heavy black smoke indicative of a fuel fire poured from the area where the
tanks were stored. No. 7 World Trade Center fell straight down, suggesting an internal collapse. Although the Secret Service study indicated that nothing but a truck bomb could bring No. 7 World Trade center down, it was destroyed by fire.

Giuliani’s 9/11 actions reassured a traumatized city

The mayor set up an emergency post [near the WTC]. Then there was an enormous thud. The South Tower of the World Trade Center had imploded and Giuliani was tapped in the now dust- and debris-filled building.

Giuliani’s actions that morning at Ground
Zero not only brought some measure of assurance to his grief-stricken, traumatized constituents in the immediate aftermath of that defining tragedy, but in demonstrating his great personal courage, dedication, and leadership, he succeeded in shedding
both the baggage of his long career and more recent negative image to emerge to most people as a superhero to his city, the nation, and the world.

One political opponent said, “I’m not a big fan of Giuliani’s mayoral leadership, but that day he
performed superbly.” Another political opponent said, “Where Giuliani surprised people is not the ”take charge“ part of it, but the emotional part of it and the way he very effectively brought hope to the people of the city and kept their spirits up.”

Locating command center in WTC7 contributed to destruction

In the wake of 9/11, questions began to surface concerning the wisdom of Giuliani’s locating the emergency reaction center right there, where there could be another, truly devastating attack. It was later revealed that the fuel tanks required to service
that command center were in large part responsible for the destruction of the 7 World Trade Center building, which had not taken a direct hit by aircraft.

When Giuliani builds the Emergency Command Center, he puts it in the wrong place.
What was expected was a chemical and biological attack. Some people said, “This is a really bad idea. They hit this target once and they’re going to come back; we should but it in Brooklyn.”

This was supposed to be a bunker. A bunker is normally underground. It is a place where you dig in. In your command center, you should be safe from enemy attack, so you do not put a bunker on the 23rd floor of an office building.

Terrorists attacked us before 9/11, and after 9/11

PAUL: We had an air base in Saudi Arabia, that was given as the excuse for 9/11. There’s always a radical element in almost all religions. They have to have an incentive. We give them that incentive. The question that you aren’t willing to ask is, why is
it that they attack America? I mean, they don’t attack the Canadians. They don’t attack the Swiss.

ROMNEY: Is it such a mystery as to why they attack America? We’re the strongest nation in the world.

GIULIANI: Ron, it’s simply not true.
Islamic terrorists killed over 500 Americans before September 11, going back to the late 1960s. They have also killed people recently in Bali, in London. They have launched attacks in Germany. I could go on and on. The attack on Leon Klinghoffer.

PAUL:
You paint all Islamics the same way, and this is a dangerous thing. What you’re doing is damaging our relationship by destroying our relationship with all Muslims. That’s what you’re doing.

Would personally execute Bin Laden for attacking NYC

[In the days following Sept. 11], I thanked Pres. Bush and told him how proud I was of how he was handling the country in this crisis. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

I told him, “If you catch this guy, Bin Laden, I would like to be the one to
execute him.” I am sure he thought I was just speaking rhetorically, but I was serious. Bin Laden had attacked my city and as its mayor I had the strong feeling that I was the most appropriate person to do it.

Led New York City through the events of 9/11

It was an exceptionally clear summer morning. At 8:45, I was told that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I looked up at the clear blue sky & thought, “It’s such a beautiful day. A plane doesn’t just hit the WTC by accident.”

While mayor, I made
it my policy to see with my own eyes the scene of every crisis so I could evaluate it firsthand. As shocking as this crash was, we had actually planned for just such a catastrophe. My administration had built a state-of-the-art command center on the 23rd
floor of 7 WTC, just north of the twin towers. So that’s where we headed.

My first assumption was that it was some nut flying a small plane. Then the 2nd plane hit. All I saw was a big flash of fire. This convinced us it was terrorism.

I immediately
devised two priorities. We had to set up a new command center [further from the twin towers]. And we had to find a way to communicate with people in the city. [We spent the day accomplishing those two priorities, which continued 24/7 for several days.]